I'm Coming Home
by Fictitious Being
Summary: Inspired by the song and Camp Phoenix' roleplay. Credit to Soric Gorus for awesome romance parts! (COMPLETE)
1. Hell's Corners

**Trying to spam my forum to the first page because we are so close... **(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡 **I gave up to come and write this instead as a shipping of two characters on that forum. ** Enjoy!

.

Zavid gasped as he reformed completely. It was dark and cold, yet bright and burning. _I died... _He remembered. _Somebody stabbed me... right here... _He touched himself over his heart. _With imperial gold... and I vanished immediately... _The manticore panicked then. _The camp! _But more importantly, _Lorelei!_

Clawing his way out of his reforming chamber, Zavid spilled out onto the grounds of Tartarus, thankfully with a loincloth around his waist. He may be a monster, but he was also civilized. Gasping for air and sticky, Zavid stood up on shaky legs, coughing on the scorching air of the deepest parts of hell. Looking around, he saw other monsters spilling out of their chambers as well. But he didn't care about them. There was only one thing on his mind at the moment.

_Lorelei._

_I _need _to get to her... See if she is still alive..._ Taking a step forward, the manticore stumbled. The world spun around him. _How long has it been? _He asked himself as the world continued to dip and spin. Closing his eyes tightly, he counted to ten before opening them again. Some things were still out of focus, but it was good enough.

_I need to find Hades... _He thought. _But where..._ A pull in his gut told him where. Looking around, Zavid took another step forward and went against the push and shove of other monsters. Stumbling and shoving, pushing and scratching, writhing and howling masses of other monsters pushed against Zavid as he tried to advance, slowing his progress down significantly.

_Did this many of us _really_ die in that battle? _The blonde manticore thought. A sudden cold grew in his stomach. _How many of the campers died? And was mon cher amid those who had fallen?_Zavid pushed harder, even shifted into his manticore form and tore the heads off of a few daimons to get to the end of the crowd.

Once there, the beast collapsed. He heard flames, but their roar was dull to his ears. He was thirsty. He was starving. He was exhausted after his struggles through the crowds.

But her name went through his mind once more.

_Lorelei._

No. He couldn't give up so early on.

Pushing himself to his feet, Zavid returned to human form, clutching his stomach as he stumbled across the empty fields.

He walked for hours on end, feet blistering and bleeding, but still he trudged forth. He would get there, back to the surface world, even if it only meant seeing her for just one more second before he was sent back to Tartarus again. And he would do exactly as he was now again if he was sent back.

As he walked, memories flashed through Zavid's mind. He had almost lost her twice when he had taken the camp to Rome. Twice he had almost driven himself to despair as he impatiently paced halls as the Apollo kids worked on her, permitting no visitors into her room, even the camp directer himself.

_I'm coming home, Lorelei..._

...

Zavid walked for days on end. He wasn't sure if he was walking circles or not, but his feet hurt so much he felt as though he had walked the entire world. Maybe he had. He didn't know. All the manticore knew was that he _had _to see her again, to see if she was alive and as well as a demigod could be with the threat of creatures like him lurking around every corner.

...

Eventually Zavid made it to a dead end. He pushed on one of the walls around him. It felt like stone, and it felt a bit damp, too. Looking up, Zavid saw nothing but a black abyss. He smiled as much as his chapped lips would allow. Black above. That was new from the orange haze he saw every time he looked up, trying to remember the stars at which he gazed with his _cher._

Grabbing hold of the wall with both hands, Zavid began to climb up into the black abyss.

_Even if it takes me my entire life to find you again, mon cher, I shall _never _give up my search. _He thought as he climbed slowly up and out of Tartarus. _Not even Hades' walls shall keep us apart. The gods will not stand between us and our love for each other._

Zavid's foot slipped and the stones on which it had been on clattered down. Grunting and breathing in deeply, Zavid readjusted. He was sweating terribly, but he wouldn't let discomfort stop him from completing his quest.

_Je vais vous retrouver, mon amour. _Zavid thought. _I_ will _find you again, my love._

**_*To be Continued!*_**

**I know. You all hate me for doing that. XD But I'm going to make this a good three chapters or so long. Chapter one: Tartarus, chapter two: Hell, and chapter three: Lorelei. Sound good everybody?**


	2. It Is Never Too Late

**Raise your hand if you love Zavid! *raises hand* xD**

**...**

Zavid grunted as he heaved himself another inch away from Tartarus. Debris was falling all around him now, and looking up he could see the tiniest, faintest speck of light. Maybe it was just his imagination. He didn't know. But up was the only option now. Down was too far: a bigger swirling abyss than what was above.

Seeing as he had no other choice about which direction to continue in, Zavid pressed his forehead against the wall in front of him. His chest heaved each time he took a breath, all of which came in as short, ragged, and pained gasps that brought with them air littered with seering dust.

Coughing and wheezing, Zavid pressed his eyes shut tightly. His entire body hurt like the hell of which he was climbing from. His limbs shook and his sweat ran down his back in streams. The manticore was unsure how he was producing so much sweat, considering he was sure that the last time he had drank anything was a few days before he had been murdered by a camper who had turned against him and the rest of the camp.

Feeling his grip on the stones loosen, Zavid shifted out his scorpion tail and dug the tip of it deep into the wall before re-positioning his hands and feet. Letting out a deep sigh once he was stable, Zavid reached up shakily with his left hand.

_Don't fall. Don't fall. Don't fall. _He silently willed himself. _Otherwise, you'll just have to start over. _

_"You look ridiculous!" _A voice said in his ears.

_"Ridiculous?" _Zavid's own voice responded. _"Mon cher, I assure you, I am _not _ridiculous."_

_"Between shifting?" _The voice responded. "_Yes you are." The words were followed by laughter as sweet as honey, light and flitty like the song of a bird._

Zavid smiled softly as the memory went through his head. "Yes, mon cher." He thought out loud. "I _did _look rather ridiculous that day, no?" Laughing at himself, Zavid was filled with new vigor. He brought his left foot up to his chest, securing his foot hold before he reached as high as he could with his right arm.

Pulling himself further and further up the hole to the pits of hell, Zavid noticed that the light from above was in fact getting larger the further he went. Zavid grinned widely and half shifted his face, having his lion muzzle and ears, as well as some of his lion mane mixing in with his human hair, before he continued to advance.

_I look trés ridicule, mon amour, _Zavid thought. _Just for you. _

Climbing hand over hand, foot above foot, and, occasionally, scorpion-tail over head for breaks, Zavid advanced.

•°•O•°•

Gasping for breath and entire body aching miserably so, Zavid heaved himself over the lip of Tartarus' gaping hole. Vision blurred and black spots dancing around the edges of it, Zavid collapsed onto the ground and rolled away from the edge with difficulty. Blinking his eyes, his vision went in and out of focus, getting worse and worse with each passing second.

The blurry figure of a human appeared above him as the black spots began to overwhelm him. Zavid saw a hand reach down to grab him before his eyes lolled to the back of his head and everything went black.

•°•o•°•

Zavid groaned and sat up. His head throbbed terribly, and his vision was hazy, but over all, he felt better than he had earlier that day.

_Week? Month? Year? YearS? _Zavid thought. He didn't know. How long had he been walking around in Tartarus? How long did it take him to climb out? For all he knew, he could have been there, trying to find a way to get to Lorelei for fifty years.

The manticore saw movement from the corner of his bi-colored eyes and he turned his head slowly to see a sickly pale man with clothes that bore moving skulls and screaming faces on them. Zavid squinted, trying to remember where he had seen the man before, until he remembered. Jumping back, Zavid moved as quickly as his stiff limbs would allow him to an opening in the room other than that of the man.

"Zavid, stop." The man said.

Out of instinct, Zavid stopped where he was. Cursing himself for his fear of the man, he turned towards him slowly, avoiding eye contact. "How may I serve you today, my lord Hades?" He asked, using the greeting he was told to use whenever called upon while he had been a slave to the gods. His voice cracked and creaked terribly, but he assumed Hades would understand what he had said. The god talked to skeletons all day, and they said nothing more than _clack clack clack clack._

Hades shook my head. "Not me. But my wife."

This piped Zavid's interest. "Persephone?" He asked. "But she had wanted nothing to do with me while I was serving for your lordship."

Hades just shrugged. "I don't question her. Ever since the whole pomegranate thing, it's just best that I don't get on her bad side."

Zavid nodded. "Understood, sir. And where might I find the mistress...?"

Hades pointed over his shoulder. "Over that way in her gardens somewhere." He informed. "You'd best be going before her temper grows ill."

"Of course. Right away sir. I'll head over as fast as I can."

Hades nodded and turned to leave before stopping. "Oh. And Zavid?" He said.

"Hm?"

"Good luck with your search. You'll need all the luck you can get."

Hades words put an unsettling feeling in Zavids stomach as the lord of the Underworld disappeared. Since when had Hades told people good luck? Since when was the god ever friendlywith Zavid? And usually, if a god said "good luck" to one in terms of missing people, it meant that they were dead.

Shaking away his sudden queasiness, Zavid headed towards Persephone's gardens.

•°•o•°•

"Persephone?" Zavid asked as he entered the gardens. He looked around, shocked by how many things were growing there. He had never been permitted to enter the garden when Hades had been holding his reins. He guessed it was because the god of the Underworld feared that the manticore would eat one of the pomegranates and be forced to keep him all year long, unable to kill the half-titan monster for good without the potential of releasing those worse than himself.

But Zavid hadn't minded, and he _still _didn't. He was actually glad the gardens had been off limits, because at that moment, he couldn't _stand _the smell of the gardens. It was sickly sweet, not like Lorelei's sweet scent. Her's had smelt more natural. The gardens sweet scent smelt more _forced_ to the manticores nose.

A head peered from around a bush, features holding beauty that only a goddess could hold. "Hello, Zavid." Persephone said. She walked out from behind the bush and over to Zavid.

"Mistress Persephone." Zavid responded. He turned into his manticore form, about to grovel his face in the dirt of the gardens but was stopped as Persephone held out a hand.

"Please, don't." She said with contempt. "I don't want the dirt to be tracked inside."

"Understood." Zavid said, wincing a little at her words as he returned to human form and stood back up before her. "Is this the preferred state the mistress wishes me to be in?" He asked.

Persephone's eyes darted up and down Zavids form and she shook her head. "Let's get you properly clothed, first. And _then_ we'll talk."

•°•o•°•

Once Zavid had been dressed in a black shirt and some jeans, Persephone sat him down. She told him of how she had been watching the camp all throughout his directing career at it. "I grew to love how close you were with the campers you had once despised so early on in your life," Persephone admitted. "Although what I had grown to love even more so, however, was how close you and that camper Lorelei had become."

"You were watching us?" Zavid asked, shocked. Persephone smiled and laughed.

"Oh, boy, you are so näive!" She exclaimed. "All the gods have watched you at some point or another. And by all, I mean _all."_

"But why?"

The goddess shook her head. "That is not important at the moment." She said, before she delved into another story.

By the end of the rather one-sided conversation, Zavid had learned that Persephone had also been watching him struggle through Tartarus to try and get to his lost love. "I urged you on," She said with a small smile. "I gave you those memories when you had felt as though all had been lost."

"You... you _helped _me?" Zavid asked, shock. No god had ever helped him, except for Hephaestus, Lorelei's father. He was the reason he had been assigned the camp in the first place. "But why?"

Persephone smiled sadly. "Because I want what Lorelei has." She said. "A man as loving and caring and devoted as you." She let out a sigh. "But alas, since I cannot, I then decided to aid you. You and Lorelei are perfect for each other, and I never want to see your love die out."

Zavid's nose wrinkled. "You sound like Aphrodite." He said.

Persephone gave a soft laugh. "Yes, yes. I suppose I do. But really, Zavid, when it comes to love, all goddess say the same thing, which boils down to one, simple thing: You inspire us to seek out love similar to the one that you have found."

"So you're going to help me find her?" Zavid asked.

Persephone shook her head. "I can only get you out of her, my young warrior. I can't aid you any further than that."

Zavid nodded. "Understood." He said. He hesitated before he asked the one question that was really irking him. "How long have I been gone?"

"Four and a half years." Persephone replied immediately.

"Four and a half years..." Zavid repeated. "That puts Lorelei at... twenty-three, now? And me twenty-four..." He sighed. "What if I'm too late?" He asked.

"That's the beauty of love, my dear." Persephone replied. "It is _never _too late."

...

**ONE MORE CHAPTER REMAINING! :D**


	3. Home at Long Last

***breaks down crying* LAST CHAPTER! *cries more* But there will hopefully be more Zorelei fics in the future, either by me or other members of Camp Phoenix! Yay to the thought!**

**Anyways! On to la story! (also, expect more french in this chapter. ._. Get Google ready, mon amis(or, if you don't want to use google, right click on the page, and there should be a "Translate page" clicking thingy :3).)**

**It's going to merge with Oddy's story s/11118052/1/I-ve-Been-Waiting-For-You once he gets to the house, so random italicizing signify her story. :3**

**...**

Zavid blinked his eyes against the light of the setting sun, which was right in his face. _Putain, Apollo, _Zavid thought with a low growl. _Turn down the high beams, now would ya! _Blinking his eyes against the light, Zavid breathed in the cool, fresh air of the country side. _Back on the surface at long last. _

Once the light from behind his lids was gone, Zavid opened first his blue one, then his more sensitive brown one. Looking around, he tried to get a general sense of his directions in the fading light before he decided to look up. In the sky, Orion was already sparkling almost directly in front of him in a spot very familiar compare to the tree line.

_I'm next to the camp! _Zavid thought with excitement. He closed his eyes and, for the first time that the monster could remember, the manticore prayed to the gods. _Please let her be there, or at least as a known survivor of the battle._ He prayed before he opened his bicolored eyes and trekked forward, keeping Orion at his right as he made his way to the camp entrance.

•°•o•°•

All was quite and calm in the camp, and Zavid saw a guard standing tiredly near the Big House. He smiled as an idea came to him. Sneaking around the guard, he headed to the dining pavilion.

•°•o•°•

Zavid walked towards the cabin, two pots in hand. Making sure everybody was fast asleep first, he began to bang the pots together. "Wake up! Wake up! Bright and early, mon amos!" He called.

Groans of complaints sounded from the campers. "Shut up, Zavid!" Was the gist of what they all were saying. Until every one of them grew silently. Their voices rose together in exclamations of questioning.

"Zavid?"

"Zavid's back?"

"Everybody! Zavid's back!"

Zavid barely had a moment to brace himself before thirty campers were all jostling around him. "Mon amis, mon amis!" The manticore laughed. "Retour au large de la pauvre garçon! I just came back from Tartarus, you know!"

A tall blonde came out of the crowds, smiling wildly. "Yo! Zavid! My man!" He exclaimed. "How you been?"

Zavid quirked an eyebrow. "James? Is that you? What are _you _still doing here?"

James rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, ah... you see, after you had been, ah... _killed_, the camp was without a director, so I stepped uo and took the plate."

Both of Zavid's eyebrows rose up. "Wow. Tout le choc. James Lime, known prankster and the most irresponsible person in camp stepped up and became _responsible? _Wow. I must say, I am thoroughly impressed."

James turned red in the face. "Yeah... Had nothing else to do, and it was easy money, so... poof! I filled out the temporary application and got the job!"

"Well, congratulations." zavid said, patting James on the back, though he was rather disappointed. Persephone had been right. Zavid _had_ come to love the young demigods that had been at his camp. All of his friends were said demigods, and now they were all gone, out on their own in the world, exploring and making a living on their own, maybe even sending young demigods in the direction of the camp.

James cleared his throat, drawing Zavid's attention back to him. "So what brings you back this way Zavid?" James asked. "Were you coming to get your job back, or...?"

Zavid blinked. "I'm looking for Lorelei." Zavid replied. "Après avoir passé quatre ans et demi en enfer, I don't know where to start looking for her."

James nodded. "She moved to her own place." He said. "Or, not rather her own place. That one you two visited frequently and were always talking about buying."

"Really?" Zavid asked. "Is she still there?"

James nodded again. "Yeah. I believe she is."

_So she's alive! _Giddy, Zavid couldn't stop the purr that rose in his throat. "Thank you James. I owe you everything for the help you have provided me with."

James chuckled. "No need, Zavid. It's nice to see you again. And good luck!" The son of Hermes shouted after the manticore as he took off and out of the camp.

S_he's alive!_

_•°•_o•°•

A two story_ quaint brick house was snuggled comfortably at the corner of two streets, dead leaves littering the unkempt lawn. The house itself was not much better from the discolored patches that were dotting the roof to the tattered white shutters hanging from the curtained windows. It seemed as if whoever lived there had quit taking care of their property a long time ago._

Zavid stopped a few yards away from the house, observing it. It appeared to be dark and blocked off from the outside. The air was heavy with grief and sorrow. Zavid heard no noise coming from the inside, and his heart grew heavy. He turned around, about to leave, until he heard a loud crash coming from the inside.

Zavid turned back around and bolted towards the door, silently with predator like skill. Shifting his ears into lion ears, he pressed them against the door. The crashing continued for a few more seconds until he began to hear soft sobs coming from within. _She's here..._

Zavid stood up straight and returned his ears to human ears as he straightened out his shirt. He then knocked on the door.

The sobbing broke off suddenly. Uneven footsteps could be heard descending stairs, possibly with a limp. The knob turned slowly, and eyes with dark hair framing them peeked out at Zavid.

"_Hello, Lorelei," Zavid said softly_. He didn't want to startle her, for she looked like she had seen a ghost. He guessed that she had, since it's been four and a half years since his known death.

_The dark haired woman, Lorelei, broke down completely as she threw herself at him, arms wrapping around his neck. _Her soft sobs were muffled as she cried into Zavid's neck, and he smiled softly at her reaction.

_He chuckled softly and wrapped his own arms around her, pulling her close. _He rested his head on top of hers, rubbing soothing circles on his cher's back. _Lorelei's sobs had reduced to sniffling and she managed to choke out a few words._

_"I've been waiting for you."_

Zavid smiled and pulled away slightly from her. He looked his love deep in her eyes before leaning down and kissing her lips softly. "_Pas même les murs de l'enfer pourraient me empêcher de revenir à vous, mon amour.._" Zavid whispered to her. "Not even hell's walls could keep me from coming back to you, my love."

...

***breaks down crying like Lorelei***


End file.
